BETWEEN THE LINES

Racism in the eye of the beHolder

Exclusive: Joseph Farah asserts attorney general has no desire to end discrimination

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators News Service.. He is the author or co-author of 13 books, including his latest, "The Tea Party Manifesto," and his classic, "Taking America Back," now in its third edition and 14th printing. Farah is the former editor of the legendary Sacramento Union and other major-market dailies.

How did I miss it in July when Eric Holder told ABC News that it was racist to suggest Americans should take their country back?

I’m just now catching up on that one after hearing Vice President Joe Biden misuse the term “take America back” after apparently not getting the memo from the attorney general about the racial overtones of this phrase.

Still, I would love to hear an explanation from Holder on how those words conjure racist thoughts. Why would a desire to take one’s country back suggest racism to Holder, the attorney general and unofficial race czar?

Best I can figure is that racism is truly in the eye of the beHolder.

Rather than express shock that a non-racial phrase about the people taking back their country in a government supposedly “of the people, by the people and for the people” is being called racist, I probably should be asking the question of just what Obama and Holder don’t see as evidence of racism.

I think I can answer that question:

It’s not racism when Joe Biden uses the phrase “take back America,” as he did in a sparsely attended speech in Detroit on Labor Day. That’s OK because Biden’s one of the good guys, despite his innumerable racist gaffes, including those about Indian-Americans at 7-Elevens or Dunkin’ Donut shops or how Obama was “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” that were also not offensive to so-called “progressives.”

It’s not racism when blacks use racist terms about blacks.

It’s not racism when “progressives” treat minorities differently than they treat whites – especially if that treatment connotes preference even though it denotes paternalism.

It’s not racism when an innocent young black woman (Miriam Carey), with baby in tow, is gunned down by Capitol Police for making a wrong turn in Washington under Eric Holder’s watch. In fact, it’s not even a crime!

I could go on and on. So, what is racism to Obama and Holder?

It’s racism when you criticize this administration.

It’s racism when you question the legality of what this administration does.

It’s racism when you suggest the Democratic Party’s obsession with race might just have more to do with maintaining a new political plantation mentality than with actual improvement in the lives of minorities.

It’s racism when Americans agree with Martin Luther King’s call for a color-blind society in which people “will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

It’s racism, in fact, when Americans refuse to view their society through anything other than a prism of institutional racism.

Let me say it bluntly and without fear: Obama, Holder and all their ideological clones – white, brown or black – are nothing more than racialist one-trick ponies.

They have no desire to end racism in America – if such a feat were even possible.

Their desire is to perpetuate racism for their own political empowerment.

Holder, shortly after becoming the U.S. attorney general, chose to lecture Americans by labeling them as “cowards” who were afraid to have a real dialogue about race: “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and we – I believe continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards.”

More recently, Holder used similar language that made it clear he believes King’s color-blind society is an obsolete, anachronistic idea: “As it stands, our society is not yet color-blind; nor should it be, given the disparities that still afflict and divide us. We must be color brave and must never forget that all are made better and more prosperous if all are given equal opportunities. …”

He did not mention that he “borrowed” this phrase without credit from African-American businesswoman Mellody Hobson. But that’s another story for another time.

You see, Obama, Holder and their ideological like – regardless of their skin color – represent the worst thing that could happen to blacks and other minority groups in America. Six years in power clearly demonstrate that their goal of improving life for blacks and minorities has been, shall we say politely, “elusive.”

Even worse, all their yakking about race has only caused more division and polarization among Americans of all races.

They’re not about healing and reconciliation. They’re about fanning the dying embers of real historical racial injustice and discontent.